SpeedTreeRT™ Integrated With Unreal® Engine 3
FIRST SCREENSHOTS REVEALED AT HTTP://WWW.IDVINC.COM/HTML/DOWNLOADS_IMAGES.HTM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2005
COLUMBIA, SC - Interactive Data Visualization (IDV) today announced that SpeedTreeRTTM, its hardware independent foliage solution, has been integrated with Epic Games' Unreal® Engine 3. Unreal Engine licensees will now have access to SpeedTreeRT's advanced content creation options, enabling them to quickly and efficiently populate game environments with highly detailed trees and foliage.
SpeedTreeRT delivers low-polygon, highly realistic trees and plants, with adjustable wind effects, seamless LOD transitions, and a library of hundreds of tree models from more than 100 species. SpeedTreeRT also includes SpeedTree CAD, which will enable Unreal Engine licensees to create and edit animated trees in real-time.
SpeedTree technology has also been integrated into the Unreal Engine's decolayers, so forests can be painted directly onto the terrain, eliminating the need to place trees individually. Although the trees appear at unprecedented detail, thanks to the efficiency of the SpeedTree technology, any foliage will have a minimum impact on frame rates.
"Unreal Engine 3 features a number of important new features and tools, including a new material editing system that we were able to exploit with outstanding results. We were also able to take full advantage of its innovative new material editor and achieved amazing new per-pixel lighting effects," said IDV Vice-President Michael Sechrest.
Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games Inc., agreed that the screenshots provide an impressive early view of the quality environments SpeedTreeRT will help build with Unreal Engine 3. "The new screen shots are a great indication of where things are heading for SpeedTreeRT's Unreal Engine 3 integration," Rein said. "I expect many of our licensees will want to test-drive the SpeedTreeRT's evaluation version when it becomes available."
Initial screenshots can be viewed at:
http://www.idvinc.com/html/downloads_images.htm
IDV plans to publicly release a real-time demo featuring the Unreal Engine 3 integration later this year.
Pricing:- The Unreal Engine 2 version of SpeedTreeRT licenses for $9,995. The license fee for SpeedTreeRT Unreal Engine 3 is expected to be comparable.
SpeedTreeRT delivers low-polygon, highly realistic trees and plants, with adjustable wind effects, seamless LOD transitions, and an included library of hundreds of tree models from more than 100 core species. SpeedTreeRT includes SpeedTreeCAD, a Windows application used to create and edit animated trees in real-time. Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV), develops software products with a focus on real-time three dimensional applications for the game development, visual simulation, engineering visualization, and animation industries. IDV, a privately held corporation, was founded in 1999 in Columbia, South Carolina. For more information about IDV, visit www.idvinc.com.
Unreal Engine
The award-winning Unreal Engine is known for cutting-edge graphics and a best-of-breed toolset. Unreal Engine 3 is expected to maintain those features while adding massive world support, multi-processor support, next-generation console optimizations, and one of the most mature tool pipelines in the industry. Unreal Engine 3's new toolset is designed specifically to accelerate developers' productivity for ultra-complex, nextgeneration content. Additional information on Unreal Engine can be obtained at www.unrealteachnology.com.
Epic Games
Epic Games Inc., based in Raleigh, NC and established in 1991, is a developer of cutting-edge computer and video games. The company is best known as the creator of hit PC 3D action games Unreal and Unreal Tournament, both award-winning blockbuster hits having each sold more than one million copies. Epic is also responsible for the Unreal Engine, which is the underlying technology for a wide range of games including, 2002 Console Game of the Year winner, Tom Clancy's Splinter CellTM from Ubi Soft; PC Gamer's 2000 Game of the Year, Deus Ex from Ion Storm/Eidos; America's Army: Operations, from the United States Army, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PC) from Electronic Arts. Additional information can be obtained through Epic's Web site at www.epicgames.com.
Unreal is a registered trademark of Epic Games Inc. All rights reserved.
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